2081
by The Closet Otaku
Summary: A short fic based off of the short story "Harrison Bergeron" by Kurt Vonnegut. Yume is just an average or maybe beyond average girl that has to be put through various handicaps to become "equal" in the eye of the government. However, her sister Akuma has an idea that could turn an ordinary day into something that will change many people's worlds for good.


**Finally done editing this! This is the final version of this story, and I don't plan on changing anything...So, this features Yume and Akuma, two of my OC's. Even though they don't belong in a story together...Yume belongs in my Vocaloid stories and fantasies, and Akuma is from a story I'm writing on DA. Either way, they're in this because I couldn't think of better characters. This is based on the short story "Harrison Bergeron," about America in 2081 when the 200-somethingth amendments to the constitution issue handicaps to those exceeding the average person. And so this is my strange interpretation of it~**

I woke up that morning to the sunlight hitting my face. Once, someone might have called me beautiful. Or, at least, if these laws weren't in place. When my parents had realized that I was going to be one of the more attractive people in the population they cried for me. I didn't really understand it right away, but I did once I was taken away.

I had been one of the best violinists in my school. So good, at one point, I wasn't allowed to take lessons any more. But that didn't stop me. I kept practicing and when music didn't exist past a certain level, I started writing my own pieces. But I had been playing my violin the day I was taken away.

What had happened was that I had written a story for the kids I used to baby sit. They had really liked me, and I really liked spending time with them, so I wrote a story about how the government made all these happy people sad by making them ugly. I knew I shouldn't have, but I couldn't contain myself. My older sister had been taken from my family because she was getting too strong, and when she came back one of her arms were cut off and she had been strapped down to a wheel chair. In the end, the children had told their parents about my story and I got reported.

So I was taken away just like my sister had been. It was probably some sort of hospital at some point, since it was white and not very welcoming. The screaming didn't help that much either. And so they started ruining me. They stripped me and tied me down to an operation table. They didn't even try knocking me out or blocking my vision. They just took a saw and started cutting my leg off. I passed out due to the pain. When I had woken up, they had apparently burned the wound shut and had moved on to slicing me up. It seemed like hours that I laid there and they let their knives bite into me. Long cuts, short cuts, it didn't really matter, since they all scarred over. The last thing I remember before another wave of pain was them calling me a mutt and something about spaying me. "Don't want her raising a family of rebels," they had said. When I had woken up once again, there was an ugly cut on my abdomen that had been stitched up awkwardly. They finally took me off the table, only to shove me into another room where they died my hair the most horrid shade of bright blue. The shoving must have been easy though, since I only had one leg now. I was taken to one last room where they fitted me with a titanium leg and these arm braces that sent shocks to my fingers if they moved in any strange or erratic ways. What hurt me the most was when my sister laughed at me once I finally got home.

But home wasn't exactly a safe place either anymore. My beautiful violin had been replaced with this ugly creature that screeched on every note. My comb had been taken from me. What I couldn't stand was the fact that every time I typed more than five words, my keyboard would switch languages randomly. But I still struggled on.

So here I am, laying in bed, waiting for my mother to call out for Akuma and me to come eat breakfast. Outside I could hear the birds singing. Sadly, I couldn't play my beautiful violin for them any more. It just sits in my closet, waiting to be used again.

My mother called, and I headed out of my room, hoping not to bump into Akuma before she had any food in her.

"Hey, Yume!" she yelled at me.

"Good morning," I replied weakly.

She smirked at me. "I had an idea. And this one might work."

I just shook my head and went to the kitchen to eat some perfectly ordinary pancakes and drink some perfectly ordinary orange juice. I couldn't stand her crazy schemes. Usually they didn't work out and left our household under surveillance for months and months on end. Every next time was more and more terrifying.

Our mother told us to get ready for school and be in the car within fifteen minutes. I grabbed my usual school uniform and got dressed, rushing to at least brush my teeth before going out to the car and meeting my family.

The drive to school was boring as well. Only, Akuma was being strange. She kept looking out of the windows, as if she was searching for someone. I didn't question her motives though. She was always getting involved in crazy stuff anyways. Maybe she just had a smoke or something.

What really got me was when Akuma's friend, the really silly looking one that always acted so cool, came and gave me a hug, telling me to meet him backstage before my orchestra rehearsal. I was going to interrogate him, but before I could get a single word out of my mouth, he kissed me and walked away.

The rest of the day was extremely weird. They had to move a bunch of the classes since some of the elementary schools were here on a field trip. And then the batteries in my cuffs went dry. I didn't understand. I wasn't really sure what was going on. But there were other things going wrong, like the computers being slow and the televisions not getting a very good signal, so I just passed it as solar flares or something. `

I made my way to the music room behind the stage when a rough voice said my name from behind me.

I turn around and see Akuma's friend standing behind me with a grin on his face. Only, he looks different. His hair is combed. His clothes are…nice. They looked good on him. "You're not hiding anything," I say quietly. "Where are your handicaps?"

He grinned at that. "Nowhere." He shoved a bundle of clothes into my hand. "Hurry, we don't have much time." He pointed to a little corner with some cardboard blocking our view.

I go there to change. In the bundle was a comb and a little mirror and the outfit consisted of a black skirt and a blue tank top. Honestly, I couldn't help but smile at how I looked in the tiny mirror. I put the comb to my hair and worked it through the knots as quickly as I could without hurting myself. I looked like someone from a fairy tail. But things only got better from there.

When I came back, my sister's friend held up something from behind his back. My violin. Not the piece of junk I was given, but the real one with expensive strings and the rich honey-like tone I had come to miss. I took it in my hands, asking him, "How?" as I put it under my chin and relaxed against the cool wood.

"Your sister arranged all this. But we aren't done yet." He pointed to a microphone sitting on a table. "Play the song you wrote for that one girl's birthday. The one about the end of the world and whoever was left rising to make things better again."

I nodded, and before I started playing, Akuma yelled down the steps, "We have enough people to rise against them. They know what to do."

I smiled at that comment. Always like my sister to think about a good fight.

Her friend flipped the switch, and I started playing while he started singing the lyrics that my sister must have found on my computer once upon a time.

For a few seconds there was silence, besides the sound of our music. Then out of the silence came the sound of a stampede. It was like the song narrated the actions of the students in the school. But it had to be much more than that when I heard sirens and glass breaking and the sounds of gunfire. There was some sort of terrifying beauty to it all; the sounds of the fight and our song making it all seem like a distant dream or maybe something out of a movie.

It never felt so good to play before in my life. Instead of the electricity running through my fingers from the shocks, it was from the pure joy and energy of playing a song of this caliber and having such a beautiful accompaniment. But a song always had an end. And when this one came, I almost regretted it.

The boy turned to me and smiled. "You did good."

I laughed a little. "It was teamwork."

We walked up the steps and met Akuma, now standing on her two feet, surrounded by a plethora of fallen handicap agents. She held a gun in her hand, panting lightly as she examined her kills. Together the three of us went to see the rest of the school and how it was holding together.

The fighting was coming to the end. It was obvious that the students had won, even though hundreds were down with injuries or lying dead. Not only were there grown high schoolers, many of which were my friends and classmates, but also the little kids from the elementary schools scattered amongst the hurt.

"I think we did pretty good," Akuma said, smiling a little.

I shook my head. "I didn't want this to happen," I whispered. "I didn't want people to get hurt."

Akuma raised an eyebrow. "Yume, people get hurt. Don't you know that by now?" She poked me in the gut, hitting a spot that had hurt for over a year now.

"We're just as bad as them!" I snapped at her, hitting her across the face.

"Yume," her friend said, putting a hand on my shoulder.

I shook him off, kicking my sister with my titanium leg. "Innocent little kids are dead! You _know _I love kids! And now I've indirectly _killed _them?"

For once, a look of fear crossed Akuma's face. I couldn't believe it. The sister I was always afraid of was afraid of me. I grinned a bit crazily and was about to punch her when a little girl stepped in front of me.

"Stop it, Miss! Don't hurt her!" the little girl said in a high pitched voice.

I stared at her for a minute. All I had wanted my entire life was for everyone to be able to do what they want with their lives and not have to worry about if they are exceeding the limitations put on them. I didn't like fights; I preferred calm discussions and debates but never physical violence.

"I really hate these people too, Miss, and I wanted them to die. I know you're hurt because other people got hurt, but you shouldn't hurt people just because you're mad. You're just as bad as them," she says in her innocent voice.

She was speaking the truth. I slowly put down my arm and let my shoulders relax. My violin was still in my hand. I put it up to my shoulder and started playing a sad song I had once heard in a dream. I couldn't remember the words to it, but I knew it was sad when I started crying. The people around me stood and watched. I could hear the younger children start crying and the older ones go to care for them. Akuma completely up and left. After a while, I left as well, still playing the violin as I made it to my house.

I lay down on my bed once again, hoping that sleep would come quickly as I let that song play over and over again in my head. Finally sleep came over me as I heard the crickets outside come to life in their own little song.


End file.
